Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) claimed Tuesday afternoon to be an “impartial juror” after a reporter asked him whether he and fellow Democrats could live up to the standard they had set for Republicans.
Schumer, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and other Democrats accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans of violating their duty to act as impartial jurors during an anticipated trial for President Donald Trump in the Senate. The House of Representatives is expected to pass articles of impeachment Wednesday.
Democrats, and the media, have claimed that Republicans have already prejudged the outcome of the trial — though most Democrats have also stated their conclusions. Every Senate Democrat running for president has declared that Trump should be impeached (many of them months ago), and most have also said they would vote to remove him.
Schumer insists that McConnell allow new witnesses to be called in the Senate, accusing Republicans of a “cover-up” if they refuse. A reporter at Schumer’s press conference Tuesday in the Capitol then asked the key question:
Reporter: Can you legitimately look people in the eye and say that you are impartial?
Schumer: I am —
Reporter: Have you made up your mind that the president is guilty?
Schumer: — I am withholding any final decision until we hear all the evidence. And one of the reasons that we want these witnesses and documents is so that we can hear the full, full length and breadth of what happened.
Schumer opposes calling Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, who held a seat from 2014 until April 2019 on the board of the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, while his father was in charge of Ukraine policy.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.